U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and U.K. Secretary of State for International Trade Elizabeth Truss announced today [joint statement] the beginning of a series of fast-tracked trade negotiations toward a new free trade agreement. [USTR Release]

In the foreground is a trade agreement between the U.S. and the United Kingdom. However, in the more strategic background context these negotiations create leverage for the U.K. in their post-Brexit negotiations with the European Union. First from today:

LIGHTHIZER – […] The US negotiating team will be led by Dan Mullaney, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Europe and the Middle East; and the UK negotiating team will be led by Oliver Griffiths, Director for US Negotiations at the Department for International Trade. Over 200 staff from U.S. and UK government agencies and departments are expected to take part in the negotiations.

An opening plenary today will kick off the detailed discussions, followed by multiple virtual meetings from Wednesday 6 May to Friday 15 May. The negotiations build on the work conducted through the U.S.-UK Trade and Investment Working Group, which was established in July 2017, partly to lay the ground work for these negotiations.

A comprehensive U.S-U.K trade agreement will further deepen the already very strong trade and investment ties between the United States and UK by creating new opportunities for American and UK families, workers, businesses and farmers through increased access to the other’s market.

The United States and the United Kingdom are the first and fifth largest economies in the world, respectively. Total two-way trade between the two countries is already worth about $269 billion a year. Each country is the other’s largest source of foreign direct investment, with about $1 trillion invested in each other’s economies. Every day, around one million Americans go to work for UK firms, while around one million Britons go to work for American firms. (more)

An important geopolitical overlay helps to better understand the specifics of this dynamic.

The United States is essentially a self-sustaining economy. Meaning, if you think about a nation as an independent construct able to sustain itself; our imports are enhancements not priorities. Our domestic resources, energy development, food production and essential internal needs are capable of sustaining our population. The import of products is valuable, but in the bigger picture not fundamentally necessary for survival.

The United Kingdom is very similar in this regard. The U.K. has abundant energy resources, food and agricultural development, and is positioned as an independent economy absent the dynamic of internal politics regulating those functions. Domestic politics surrounding left-wing climate change (energy development etc), to restrict internal development, are a function of ability, not necessity. The U.K. has abundant coal, oil and natural gas; it also has abundant agriculture. [The U.K weakness is military defense.]

Because both nations are similar in their ability to be non-dependent on trade, a free trade agreement is essentially a second-tier negotiation on products and services that enhance the independence. This is a unique dynamic not found in all trade discussions. Two independent economic systems negotiating on trade enhancements to each-other.

This is a much different dynamic than negotiation with a dependent country like China. China cannot feed itself, it needs to import raw materials to sustain itself; thus the importance of the One-Belt/One-Road Beijing initiative. China is a massive economy, but China is also a dependent economy; subject to damage from external dynamics.

Similarly, due to advanced political ideology, Canada cannot sustain itself economically; however, they are dependent by choice. Currently Mexico is not self-sustaining; they too are dependent on both access to the U.S. market and the import of industrial goods. However, unlike Canada our southern trade partner is working toward self-sustenance.

♦ Dependence or Independence is the ultimate context for all trade negotiations.

Dependent countries do not inherently carry negotiation leverage, and must create leverage through access to their economy (China again). The more independent the internal economy is within any nation, the less dependency they have. Less dependency means more leverage… more leverage means better terms (with nationalist negotiators).

A U.S-U.K trade agreement would not be based on “essential” trade products or “vital” trade services. The trade is not essential, but it is complimentary.

A U.S. and U.K. trade agreement is based on mutual enhancements or mutual benefits. This is an important distinction to keep in mind because it plays into the larger geopolitical dynamic.

The U.K. is currently in a post-Brexit negotiation phase after they spit away from the European Union. Strategically, it is smart for the U.K. to enter into trade discussions with the U.S. for needed products and services they might currently be gaining from the EU.

The timing of trade discussion with the U.S. gives Prime Minister Boris Johnson leverage toward the EU. President Trump and Boris Johnson have previously discussed this.

Additionally, the U.S. and E.U will eventually have to work out a new trade agreement because President trump is realigning all existing U.S. trade terms.

The U.S. already carries all of the leverage in any discussion with the EU; both in terms of market size, need for EU to retain access to the U.S. market, and the generous one-way tariff benefit currently maintained by the EU (which Trump is about to confront). Enhancing the U.S. leverage by providing a super-highway for transatlantic trade between the U.S. and U.K. puts the EU at an even further strategic disadvantage with the U.S.

If President Trump told the EU to drop their market restrictions (protectionist tariffs and non tariff barriers); and the EU refused to negotiate…. well, Trump could just shut the EU trade door completely (think German autos) and collapse their economy. The EU needs us more than we need the EU.

Remember the important dynamic: The EU hitched their wagon to China… China cannot purchase from the EU without the dollars from their U.S. trade imbalance…. If Trump shrinks U.S. purchasing from China; Beijing has less money to spend on EU industrial goods…. When we punch China on the nose, the EU gets the nosebleed.

Again, all of this is leverage for the U.S. and vulnerability for the EU.

Thus, the Trump benefit in a complimentary trade discussion with Boris Johnson is really the pending benefit of leverage over the EU.

Not accidentally, a Johnson benefit in a complimentary trade discussion with Trump is really the current benefit of leverage in their post-Brexit negotiations with the EU.

Because most of the trade sectors will be lower tier; and because the bigger goal for President Trump would be the building of leverage to confront the EU; I would expect the biggest trade gain for the U.S. will be helping the U.K. with military purchases.

There will be a lot of small-ball stuff. However, the bigger headline within a fast deal will likely be Boris Johnson purchasing advanced military hardware from us, and in return the U.K. will have preferential access to sell into the United States market based on reciprocal value.

That preferential access will form the basis for a trade hub inside the U.K. which will be the gateway to a transatlantic super-highway. The UK will then negotiate with EU companies based on access to their trade hub. Boris Johnson control the hub.

Once an alternative trade route is established Trump will start negotiating with the EU for new terms based on reciprocity. If the EU balks, Trump reminds them he can just close direct EU trade access while reminding them EU companies can use the hub.

The EU will have no choice except to acquiesce to Trump’s terms, drop their protectionist unilateral tariffs and drop their non-tariff barriers. We finally dissolve the Marshal Plan and enter a new trade era based on actual reciprocity.

It is for people like Jeremy that drawing and quartering were invented — Tom Wolfe wrote an essay called “The Great Relearning,” in which people re-learn what previous generations learned, and we’re living through that now https://www.unz.com/print/AmSpectator-1987dec-00014

Worked there for a time when I was younger and I’m always struck by the fact that the Indians who’d immigrated there when the Empire fell integrated into British culture quite well. Worked extremely hard and quickly rose to the middle classes and upward. But shockingly not so the Muslims – I mean its almost like they don’t want to….or something-

GB Bari, The muslim savages were brought in by the Marxist Labour government to be a voting block for them. These idiot idiot politicians had never heard about the fact that all muslims are brought up from childhood to detest all non muslims.

One of the most popular imams in Iraq, one Al-Sayyid Ali Al-Husseini Al-Sistani has told his millions of followers that there was a list of ten things that were most unclean to all muslims. They are as follows:

Yes, nice people the muslims /sarc. They can put us on the same level as the sweat from an excrement eating animal (also known as a democrat here in the US) and yet one is instantly arrested in the UK for saying anything bad about either them or their beliefs.

The people from India fit into the UK and the US very well. Hindu’s I have known and still know rank as being some of the finest people in the world. They have often told me about the acute dangers of Islam. The Indian Sikh people are also very nice. They had more of a cultural move to make in order to fit in and they did cause quite a lot of trouble back in the late 1960’s and the seventies. Today however they are as British as everyone else (except muslims) in the UK.

“The United States is essentially a self-sustaining economy” Except for PPE, pharmaceuticals and medical devices—the $*#& needs to come back home and fast-we can NEVER be held hostage again by the filthy CCP-

Is the UK really food sufficient? I remember many years ago that Britain was vulnerable to U-Boat blockades because the UK was NOT food-sufficient (although that was likely due to archaic farming practices). I can’t find anything but several year old paywalled Guardian and other UK publication articles.

I’ll take English bacon over American, any day. I love English sausages, cucumbers and mince pies. I can’t remember the name of the item, but I used to eat a certain type of yogurt Sainsbury’s sold that had little chewy bits in it, almost like chewy seeds. That stuff was delicious and Idt America sells it; at least, I’ve never been able to find it. Cadbury’s chocolate beats Hershey’s with a stick. It’s not all bad.

I was a skeptic on their beer until I tried it in their wonderful pubs. Now I consider it one of their national treasures. Lots to choose from and I’ve never had fish and chips in the US that comes anywhere near the quality they have.

The notion that the UK might even come close to being a self-sustaining economy will seem bizarre to anyone who lives here. Go to any High Street retailer looking for household goods and see if you can find anything that isn’t marked “Made in China”. Likewise try to find an item of clothing or footwear that was not imported. The same is largely true for food. For the most part, home-produced items will only be found in small specialist establishments catering for the affluent. Where do you think our computers and smartphones are made?

Boris must understand at the outset that His Queen and Her Privy Council
DO NOT OUTWEIGH US……….We are willing to help the UK, but we will not tolerate Her Majesty’s
….um…majesty…..attempting to manipulate or direct us here in the U.S.

The Queen has no power in the UK, so she certainly has none in America. The Uk has no more gunboats and it is long past the time when it ruled the waves. It is a longtime since America booted out the British Monarchy. There is no need to fear a backdoor entry, and the Queen would not demean herself to use the servant’s entrants.

I hope PM Johnson has dumped Huawei once and for all. Otherwise, no shared intelligence, or maybe shared anything. This is imperative.

One thing I do know of, neither British people or even Canadians want our food. “Chlorinated chickens” or the hormones and other GMO stuff. They have a much cleaner food supply than us. They are much more strict. I used to get my dog’s food from Canada (Champion) but then they builr a facility in the States. Supposedly the same standards, but I don’t know.

Rabbit trail…Shortly after college in the early 90’s, I worked as an Engineer on a project at a Monsanto plant. Weeks before, they’d had an unexpected explosion in their “chicken feed” production unit (no injuries due to the power of remote-controlled operation). They invented the product and never knew it violently reacted with water. I saw 14″ I-beams resembling paperclips afterwards. That product was so profitable, that they paid Brown and Root to work 24/7 to get the unit back up and running, as well as $$$ premiums to get the glass-lined pipe and equipment manufactured first. Oh, and the deductible was 100 million.

I saw an article published this evening wherein the GOP (I think Cotton is leading the charge) is putting together a bill to disallow ANY F35s or any advanced assets in any country that is deploying Huawei…

And the average percentage of household income spent on food between the US and UK is what, exactly.

GMO scare tactics are Greenie BS and purposely used as trade barriers while millions suffer from hunger and the Watermelons claim they are better off sticking to “subsistence” farming practices. Ever hear of Golden Rice?

IMHO,
The thing is, while virtually every country we do trade with has large tariffs on our products,…and many countries have additionally taken advantage of our defensive (military) umbrella, without paying,…China and the EU are in a Unique position, that other countries (India, Japan, Brazil) are NOT in.

CHINA and the EU have structured their political and economic systems, depending on the status quo that PDJT is upending.

The EU has financed its generous social programs, by not paying its share of NATO obligations, and by the trade imbalance it has created with tariffs.

Look how many Audis and Mercedes there are in the U.S.,…but there are NO Ford or GM pickups or SUV’S in Germany.

Thats just one small example. Point is, for EU to agree to PDJT’s reasonable demands on trade, and meeting their NATO obligations, they will no longer be able to offer generous pension programs, or ‘free’medical.

And their people will not stand for the equivalent of the government ending their Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs. They are called “entitlements” for a reason ; once governments start handing them out, the citisenry feel “entitled”.
So, I don’t see how the EU countries CAN reach a sustainable trade agreement with PDJT, because it would destabilise their social order.

Likewise, while the details are different, CHINA also is dependeant on the status quo; they can NOT compete, and so must cheat.

To truly reach an agreement with PDJT, and not reneg, would destabilise China’s CCP rule; they can NEVER live with the terms PDJT is dictating to them.

Hence, while he can reach agreement with Japan, Brazil and even India, he can NEVER reach a sustainable agreemeny with either the EU or CHINA, and so tariffs on these two entities, for the foreseeable future, is what I see as the only way forward.

Which, over time will ALSO probably destabilise both the EU and CHINA.
It will just take longer.

After all, the EU with its unelected buerocrats setting economic policy, is really just CCP-lite. Its STILL Conmunism, and Conmunism stops working, when it runs out of other peoples $.

Both the EU and CHINA have been ripping us off, for 1/2 a trillion $/year, each, for 25-30 years.
So, around $30 Trillion,, which is about how much our budget is in the hole.

But, don’t forget that DOESN’T count all the OTHER countries that have ripped us off, for the,same 20-30 years, with uneven tariffs and military funding.

So, plenty of $ available, to square up the debt, by ending these thefts, and using tariffs against CHINA and EU, to claw back some of the trillions they have stolen.

Dutchman, and what’s truly terrifying about your post is, Trump won’t be here more than 4.5 more years. These two slime ball governmental bodies will just outlast Trump until the next leftist president takes office. Then we are screwed. So at this point, it’s a waiting game. I still don’t understand why the left didn’t just sit back and bide their time. I guess because the chosen one got those addicts so close they could taste it. And once Trump took over, it was like he took the needle out of the addicts arm. And they are surviving on handfuls of pills that aren’t strong enough to keep them from getting antsy.

I really hope DJTJR is making sure he stays clean as a whistle and is ready to run in 4.5 years. We need this admin to go on for much more than 4.5 years. We need DJTJR followed by Eric to get us a solid 20.5 years from next month.

We would also need Lighthizer, Ross, Mnuchin, and Navarro to serve for another 20 years or develop brilliant replacements to take over in their place. These men have been responsible for much of President Trump’s economic success.

Well, I think they couldn’t wait and bide their time, because CHINA is who they all work for, even if some don’t realise it. (Useful idiots)
And CHINA’s Who-flu gambit, tells me that they (CCP) can’t maintain power in CHINA, for four more years of PDJT’s tariffs.
So, CHINA has detirmined that they can not survive a PDJT second term, and we have seen the lengths they will go to, to insure he doesn’t get a,second term.

All this crap, Muh Russia/Mueller, Muh Ukraine /Impeachment, muh resistance, etc….is ALL about CHINA.
IF he had left CHINA alone, he could have persude the wall, etc.
IMHO, it was his taking on CHINA which fueled all the resistance.

Yes, PDJT has, several times said how once he’s gone, the media giants will all go out of business, without him to cover.

I do wonder; he’s not going to retire quietly, of start a foundation, or build houses for the homeless.
Trump media, could put all the others out of business, in short order.
News, entertainment, movies, etc. None of them could,stamd up against real competition; its why they subverted Faux, and use their combined influence, to suppress OANN, making it difficult to access.

Not bad. The Whole world needs to join us. It is time for,…whatchacallit, where you seperate the wheat from the chaff.
The World is going to have to declare itself, either with PDJT (and US) or with CHINA; you can’t be both!

Let’s just invade both Canada and Mexico, make them territories for awhile, change their governments to a representative republic like we have, get rid of the cartels in Mexico, eliminate the rich Mexican families’ hold on the wealth there (see getting rid of the cartels), create a large middle class, make Canada an English-only country (and the U. S., BTW), and then eventually make 10 new states out of those two countries.

That would solve huge numbers of problems for Americans, and the Canadians and Mexicans would have better lives (except those rich Mexicans and their cartels).

I stumbled onto an article on Breitbart about some dude who narrates “Honeybadger don’t give a sh*t” videos. I highly recommend it. Unless you are unable to listen to non-f-word-profanity. If so, I’ll pray for you to develop a sense of humor.

The U.K weakness is military defense. ….. As it is with most, if not all, of Europe. They decided the fund their welfare state instead of taking care of themselves, because for years, they’ve had Uncle Sugar taking care of them and the rest of mainland Europe. Time to start taking care of yourself.

No reason for the US to be the world’s bodyguard, anymore, as well all know.

The purchasing of advanced military hardware from us is completely reliant on the UK’s decision regarding Huawei. We simply cannot afford to hand China the keys to our most advanced military equipment.

The US shares a lot more common history and culture with the UK and every English speaking country including Belize than we do Red China. Why not work with these countries more so rather than the Red Chinese who say they will start a war with the US, want to dominate the world, say they are the superior race, steal US IP, make pandemics in their virus labs, use threats of military force on India, Viet Nam and Tibet, Taiwan and Hong Kong, fabricate islands into military bases in the South China and East China seas against UN resolutions and their own diplomatic promises, harvest organs from Falun Gong and Uighurs, etc.?

India is an ally not a foe. If they may lure supply chains out of the PRC all good. There are many supply chains, enough to go around. Better friends than foes. And better for the friends, like Japan, South Korea, EU and UK.

Easy to see why President Trump is hated by the globalists, especially China. Between trade and immigration Trump is killing them, figuratively speaking of course. We call it winning! This is why the 2020 presidential election is likely the most consequential election since Lincoln. WE better not screw it up or let the dems screw it up. If dems gain control China and the EU will be encouraged to continue their wicked ways and we will be slayed by open borders,

“Our domestic resources, energy development, food production and essential internal needs are capable of sustaining our population. The import of products is valuable, but in the bigger picture not fundamentally necessary for survival.”

How about Chromium?

As far as I know, we don’t have a domestic source for that one. Without chromium, we would be back near the stone age, since it is essential for things like stainless steel.

We need to be finding more Americans with strength for when President Trump reaches the end of his second term; and fix our schools. We the people need to actively participate every year in our governance and self control our own appetites.

China is a Proxy of Britain since the Opium Wars. Marxism Leninism is a product of Fabian Socialist London. The British Crown is behind the coup against President Trump. Time to implement War Plan Red. No Kings. No Queens. No Royals.

Whatever deal is negotiated with the UK the devil will be in the enforcement details which will have the Lighthizer hallmark on them. Here’s a directive from the President just a few days ago that shows nothing is ever left to chance:

“Section 1. Establishment of the Interagency Labor Committee for Monitoring and Enforcement.

The Interagency Labor Committee for Monitoring and Enforcement (Committee) is hereby established to coordinate the efforts of the United States to monitor the implementation and maintenance of the labor obligations of Canada and Mexico, to monitor the implementation and maintenance of Mexico’s labor reform, and to recommend enforcement actions with respect to Canada or Mexico, as provided for in section 715 of the Act.

Sec. 2. Membership. The Committee shall be co-chaired by the United States Trade Representative and the Secretary of Labor, and shall include representatives of the Department of State, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Homeland Security, and the United States Agency for International Development. The Co-Chairs may invite representatives from other executive departments or agencies, as appropriate, to participate as members or observers.

That’s how my favorite President and the Wolverines roll. Watch out Boris!!

Now is the time to hit Boris on his China/Huawei 5G ties given that the Chinese COVID pandemic.POTUS needs to nudge Boris over the edge on this issue now given the current strong distrust for China in the U.K.